It was Lumpy all the time!
Sunday, December 5th, 2004
It’s not every day that you get to resolve some long-standing issue from your childhood, but tonight I was fortunate enough to finally lay to rest something which has been eating away at me these past 20 years or so…
You see, back in 1983 when Return of the Jedi came out, and ewoks were all the rage, I recall being confused by a feeling of deja vu; I was positive I’d seen the little critters before.
Then I realized that it wasn’t ewoks I has seen before, but wookiees. Child sized wookiees. But where could I have possibly seen a miniature wookiee? Chewbacca is the only representative of his species featured in the original Star Wars trilogy, and he’s seven feet tall! Not only that but I was sure that the wookies I’d seen were more… domesticated… in that they lived in a house and watched television and played with toys.
Sounds like a dumb kid’s boring Star Wars infested imagination at work doesn’t it? At least that’s what I’d convinced myself, as the total lack of corroboration made my vague childhood recollection seem stupider and stupider.
But now, thanks to a on , I am finally vindicated! There really was a show which featured a family of wookiees living in a treehouse [Chewbacca’s family, no less!], and indeed it included a child character.
Seems that Chewbacca’s got a son. Name of Lumpy.
The name of the mysterious TV show in question was — and I am not joking — The Star Wars Holiday Special. Follow the link for info on the cast [everyone!] and the "story", as well as some excellent stills. Since I just watched the whole thing1 I should probably give a quick review of it here:
REVIEW: The Star Wars Holiday Special is the Worst TV Show Ever Made.
Too quick? Ok, so maybe it’s not as bad as Sydney CTV’s Kings Cross Vampires, but it runs a very close second. And Kings Cross Vampires doesn’t feature Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford or R2-D2.
The Star Wars Holiday Special really does open with Chewbacca’s family grunting and moaning incomprehensibly for what seems like ten minutes… and that really is Harrison Ford constantly hugging Chewbacca and promising to get him home for the rather pathetically named "Life Day". Chewbacca’s father and son really are named Itchy and Lumpy. Guest star Bea Arthur really does perform a musical number as the bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina … About the only thing you won’t find hard to believe about this special is that it was made in 1978.
How I ever managed to see it in the first place I don’t know, but clearly I did, and it was amazing how familiar key scenes were. The one that stuck most [ie lodged most deeply in my delicate psyche] was when a stormtrooper corners Lumpy in his room and smashes the transmitter he has only just assembled [a present from Art Carney]. To my then six-year-old self, a fellow child being hassled in his bedroom by a stormtrooper was probably a pretty distressing image.2
Thanks again to Darren for posting about this… Perhaps now I can finally put the memory of Lumpy behind me, and get on with my life.
__________
1. The complete program + a few extra bits is available as a BitTorrent from suprnova.org somewhere out there— just search for "Star Wars Holiday torrent" and you’ll find it sooner or later.
2. Fortunately Lumpy suffers no further harm, thanks to Han Solo who arrives in the nick of time and convinces the stormtrooper to leap through a balsa wood railing with a heartfelt Aieeeee!
December 5th, 2004 at 3:23 am
I remember watching the Holiday Special as well. I am almost positive this thing only aired one time on a major network. I would have been 7 or possibly 8 when it aired depending whether it was before December 6th or not. As hot as Star Wars was at that time, I would guess I was really looking forward to watching it. I never again saw the Holiday Special and it is probably a good thing. Though you have peaked my curiousity and I am considering viewing the BitTorrent.
December 5th, 2004 at 9:00 pm
I managed to watch more of this than I should - I think this poogramme [sic] really is the most compelling example of the complete [and very early one at that] sellout that George “Hey isn’t that just Steve Jobs dressed up as Steven Spielberg” Lucas was/is. Bah!
Also, I will never believe that “Itchy” wasn’t the original inspiration for the “Predator” movies… oh god now my mind has irreversibly linked Predator, Star Wars HS & bloody Planet of the Apes [damn you Lumpy and your chimp-like charm] - this goes too far.
Damn you, damn you all to hell [cold dead hands and so-forth]
Happy Life Day!
December 5th, 2004 at 10:51 pm
And remember, in Episode III we will get to see the home planet of the Wookiees, complete with their fantastic treehouses. The question is, how old is Chewbacca? Will we see an adorable infant Chewie, happily playing with his little Wookiee toys while watching TV? Or will we see a surly adolescent Chewie, loitering around the local milk-bar treehouse, chewing Wookiee gum and eyeing the finely furred form of the future Mrs. Chewbacca?
The anticipation is killing me. Or giving me a headache, at least.
As for Chewbacca being the only representative of his species in the original trilogy; just give George time. I’m sure any day now he’ll be adding in a CGI’ed team of crack commando Wookiees, leaping about and yammering throughout the most inappropriate of scenes. When Yoda dies might be a good one.
December 6th, 2004 at 12:23 am
All I have to say is this about that,
http://images.southparkstudios.com/media/video/214/sp214_chewbacca.mov
December 6th, 2004 at 2:32 am
Ok I did it and I have a dirty feeling that I just watched a wookie have virtual reality sex. I have to agree with Richard, I watched much more of this than I should have. Lucas must have had the Star Wars cast signed into a contract that required they appear in this thing. Secondly, Lumpy and Itchy, Chewbacca was a good name, not a pet name at all. But Lumpy and Itchy? Ugh, so bad.
December 6th, 2004 at 2:50 am
What’s really freaky about the VR bit is that the lecherous Itchy’s fantasy appears to involve a human [Diahann Carroll]… does he not find wookiee females attractive?
December 7th, 2004 at 4:29 pm
Poor Itchy. He gets a crush on one human and then gets accused of having a human fetish!
Now if you want to talk about fetishes, look at Jabba. First his dancing girls, then Leia. That slug has a serious bipedal fetish!
I would have liked to have seen a bevy of young female Hutts (name or race? I don’t know), writhing seductively at the ends of their chains. Sexy!
April 20th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
I also have buried fuzzy memories of the wookiee planet and a wookiee house in the trees. After watching (most of) it yesterday I agree with everything above. It dissolved my brain, and I didn’t even watch all of it.
BUT: what about the animated story in the middle?!! It was really actually good, and it had a story (unlike the garbage it was surrounded by), and it is surely the first appearance of Boba Fett anywhere. I’d like to know who did it.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
25
May 17th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Dear spammer, please fuck off
(deleted all but one junk comment)
May 26th, 2007 at 3:53 am
23
May 26th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
67
May 27th, 2007 at 1:24 am
if 42 appears, then we know the meaning of life.
May 28th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
89
May 28th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Bingo?
May 28th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
perhaps it’s seti the yeti.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
68
May 30th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I really don’t think whoever is behind these spam entries will be grabbing many gongs at the Annual Spam Awards.
But then again, I must admit I have had the strange urge to buy some numbers lately…
May 30th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
For a second there I thought it might be some (ASCII) letter-by-letter spam coming in…
May 30th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
hmm, the hex is very uninspiring. “%#gâh”, but then again, i think a few were deleted out of anger. perhaps it’s a swear word..